


then, the spark of a star shooting too close

by minfresh



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Hasegawa Langa Has a Crush, Idiots in Love, Kyan Reki Has a Crush, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pining, Pining Hasegawa Langa, Rated T for language, Requited Love, langa wishes on a shooting star and it...surprisingly comes true
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29815704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minfresh/pseuds/minfresh
Summary: It’s said that if you wish on a shooting star, your wish will come true.“I wish for Reki to like me back.”A bright star streaks across the night, leaving cosmic dust on its trail. The nighttime is cool, the roof under his bare feet is chilled to the touch, but Langa’s skin is ablaze. His hands, clasped, shiver in the wind. He squeezes his eyes shut.I said it! I said it out loud!Peeling his eyes open, Langa notices that the star’s gone from the sky. Hopefully the star heard him on its way to its destination. Maybe it’ll relay his wish and phone a friend, and maybe his wish really will come true.Langa unclasps his hands, hangs them at his sides in fists, and takes a deep breath. Cramming his eyes closed, he screams at the top of his lungs, “I really, really want Reki to like me back!”---
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Comments: 26
Kudos: 334





	then, the spark of a star shooting too close

**Author's Note:**

> it’s said that if you wish on a shooting star, your wish will come true. langa’s got a ridiculously big crush on his best friend. why not give it a shot?
> 
> \---

* * *

It’s said that if you wish on a shooting star, your wish will come true.

“I wish for Reki to like me back.”

A bright star streaks across the night, leaving cosmic dust on its trail. The nighttime is cool, the roof under his bare feet is chilled to the touch, but Langa’s skin is ablaze. His hands, clasped, shiver in the wind. He squeezes his eyes shut.  _ I said it! I said it out loud! _

Langa has never really given the supernatural forces much of a thought, but Joe once told him about the shooting stars and he’s been thinking about them ever since. He said that if you wish on a shooting star, one of the most fleeting fireballs in the sky, any wish if yours will be granted. Any wish, no matter how outlandish it is - you could ask for money, for fame, for anything...

Langa doesn’t care about any of that superficial stuff. All he really wants is for Reki to like him back - his best friend is friendly with everyone, so nothing he ever says or does alludes to crushing on Langa. They hang out all the time, but it’s always hilariously platonic. Every time Langa gets closer, Reki leans back like he’s touched fire.  _ “Whoa, uh, what’s up?”  _ he’d say, laughing nervously as his hands go up in protection.

Peeling his eyes open, Langa notices that the star’s gone from the sky. Hopefully the star heard him on its way to its destination. Maybe it’ll relay his wish and phone a friend, and maybe his wish really will come true.

Out of the two of them, Reki’s always been the more superstitious one, at least that Langa’s aware of, but Langa doesn’t see the problem with shooting his shot. What could possibly go wrong with wanting his crush to reciprocate feelings? It’s just a star, at the end of the day.

Langa unclasps his hands, hangs them at his sides in fists, and takes a deep breath. Cramming his eyes closed, he screams at the top of his lungs, “ _ I really, really want Reki to like me back! _ ”

The quietness of Okinawa at midnight whisks his words away. It could just be his ears, but he catches a faint echo across the treetops. No one is out to hear him except the stars.

He breathes, in and out, to the beat of the night, before sighing. Well, he did it; now all he has to do is dream for success. He climbs down the roof, slips into his room, and collapses onto his bed. Perhaps when he wakes up the next day, something will change...

  
  
  


☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

  
  
  


Something  _ does  _ change.

The next morning, Reki fetches Langa at his door. The doorbell rings twice before Langa answers it, and when he does Reki gives him a sheepish grin. “Good morning!”

“Reki?” Langa is, understandably, confused. They’ve never gone to each others’ houses this early in the day. They’d always skate up to a telephone pole halfway in between their houses, where they’d say their hellos and skate to school together.

It somehow feels a thousand times more personal, that Langa’s crush went out of his way to skate the full way to Langa’s house, get him, and then turn around to skate  _ back  _ so they can reach the school building in time. Langa’s house is a good distance away, mind you, and skateboarding all this distance isn’t an easy feat. Usually if he wants to reach Reki’s house, he’d take his moped.

He hopes he doesn’t sound impolite when he asks, “what are you doing here?”

“What, is this weird? We go to school together all the time,” Reki says with a shrug and a smile, feigning nonchalance. Since it’s the summertime, they’ve got supplemental classes to attend.

“Not like this,” Langa mutters. “Usually we meet up in the middle.”

Reki averts his eyes. “So you don’t wanna do this?”

_ I absolutely want to do this! _ “I never said that.” Grabbing Reki’s wrist, they take off down the streets. Reki doesn’t put up a fight; in fact, he slides his hand down so their fingers intertwine. Skating while holding hands is tough, but neither of them let go. Neither of them want to, Langa soon realizes. They hold onto each other for dear life.

_ Is this the works of that shooting star? _

This has to be the works of that shooting star. They arrive at school like normal and disconnect the moment other students can see them. They enter class separated, they sit separated (though not separated by much — they literally sit right next to each other), but when lunch comes around their orbits collide again.

It’s nothing new. Langa and Reki eat lunch together every day, and have done so since Langa’s second day of school, but today Reki tosses him a clothed box with a plaid pattern, which is something very new. It’s tied at the top with a little bow; it looks nearly identical to Reki’s lunch. “Here, for you!”

“What is it?” Langa asks instinctually. When Reki doesn’t give him a response, Langa unties the little bow and the cloth falls, revealing a bento box. On the cover is a cute little bear pattern, colored baby blue. It’s cute, and reminds Langa of Reki’s sweaters.

“Oh. Did you make two lunches for yourself?” questions Langa, opening the lunchbox. Inside contains the same contents as Reki’s.

Reki glares at him. “If I made two lunches for myself, why would I give  _ you  _ one?”

“You made this for me?”

“Wow, you really are stupid. Why would I give it to you if I didn’t want you to have it?”

“But I already have lunch,” Langa comments before it hits him like a bullet. Reki made this. He made it for Langa. He made lunch for Langa in a cute little lunchbox tied in a cute little wrapping with a cute little bow, the same way a lover would make meals for someone.

Reki chews the inside of his mouth, antsy. “If you don’t want it, you can just give it back—”

“I want it!” Langa exclaims hastily. “It’s mine and I’ll eat it!” He leaves his own lunch untouched — he figured he’d eat it later.

The rest of the day is just like this. Reki trails Langa abnormally closely; it’s not weird for them to do everything together, and that’s how they’re known at this point of the school year, but Reki borders more on clingy than just friendly. He barely leaves much space between him and Langa. They’re always partnered up for partner activities. Langa occasionally catches Reki watching him from his peripherals, and it’s strange to be observed so intently, but it’s also kind of thrilling.

This is  _ definitely  _ thanks to the star. Langa wished he knew about this whole “wishing upon a star” thing earlier, since shooting stars really hold this much power. Before, Reki was just Reki, unapologetically chummy but nothing else. He’s always drawn some sort of line, and Langa’s never crossed it. Whenever he got close, Reki would widen the distance again.

Now, it feels almost like an invitation. Like Reki is telling him to come closer, see what’s in store.

Langa wonders how far he can go, how far he can push his luck. 

  
  
  


☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

  
  
  


“Um, Langa,” Reki starts, flushed, as they stand at the same telephone pole after school, “does this mean... um, well… do you— do you wanna be my boyfriend?”

Langa stares, mouth agape, as Reki anxiously awaits a response. They stand facing each other on the empty sidewalk. His face is red, almost as red as his hair. For such a surface-level confident skater, he’s shockingly shy about feelings. About relationships. About  _ them. _

He doesn’t break eye contact, though. Langa really likes Reki’s eyes. They’re big and expressive and they look like gold pieces. There’s probably whole galaxies in them; Reki doesn’t have to say a thing - his eyes can do all the talking, and right now his eyes look like they’re pleading for an answer. Maybe if Langa leans in a bit, he’d be able to find some constellations—

“Langa.”

“Oh,” Langa says, reigning himself back to the matter at hand. Right, Reki just asked if they  _ could start dating. _ Boyfriends, as in they’ll be in a relationship together, doing cute couple stuff that Langa’s watched in his mother’s chick flicks. Stuff like hugs and hand holds and kisses, goodnight texts and dates and homemade lunches… does this mean that that’s all fair game now?

And all this is thanks to a single shooting star? Langa feels the blush on his cheeks, heart pattering faster and harder than ever. So his wish really did come true!  _ This is so freaking awesome! _

“Yes,” Langa says, and he couldn’t help but voice-crack a bit in anticipation. His hands reach out to cusp Reki’s, and Reki’s hands almost instinctively curl inside Langa’s palms. “Let’s be boyfriends, Reki!”

A dorky smile stretches across Reki’s face. That’s the Reki that Langa’s familiar with, cheeky and excited and full of that brightness that could rival the sun. “Cool! So, we’re boyfriends!”

_ Hell yeah! _

“I like you,” says Langa, his heart set ablaze. “I really like you.”

“Yeah,” Reki responds. He steps in closer and presses a short kiss against Langa’s lips. It’s quick like a snap, and before Langa can even process it properly, it’s over. Electrified, when Reki steps back, Langa feels his pulse thumping a mile a minute. “I like you, too.”

That was his first kiss. His very first kiss. Has Langa died and gone to heaven? Because if he did, he freaking loves it here.

His brain only starts to work again when Reki throws down his skateboard and goes, “well, see you tomorrow.” He climbs on and gives a wave. “Bye, Langa.” He’s blooming pink from his ears to his neck, and there’s a faraway look on his face. It’s adorable, and it makes Langa grab Reki by the shoulders and bring him close, into the tightest hug he’s ever given.

“Too tight!” Reki chokes, tapping Langa’s shoulder blade twice as if to tap out. “Let go!”

“Reki, you’re so cute!”

“You’re gonna kill me!”

Langa lets go after a final squeeze. Reki clutches his chest like he’s got a string of pearls around his neck. “What’s with you?”

“You know how it’s human instinct to want to squeeze a cute thing to death?” says Langa, hands slowly crawling back to Reki’s arms. Reki swats them away.

“Don’t finish that sentence. I thought you  _ liked  _ me.”

“I do like you.”

“Bye Langa, for real this time,” Reki says with a sigh and yet another wave. The blush still hasn’t left his face though, and Langa can see Reki’s red ears even after he’s skated away into the distance. Red like little strawberries. The sky grows rose, and Langa skates home.

  
  
  


☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

  
  
  


“Interesting.”

Langa slumps down the couch. He’s still thinking about the kiss from earlier, has been thinking about it all throughout dinner and dishes. He’s been on cloud nine since. It’s safe to say that he’s not actually processing anything his mother is doing, and that includes what she finds interesting. “What’s interesting?” he questions, dazed.

“Hmm? Oh, I was reading my horoscope,” Nanako says with a kind smile. She joins him on the couch. “It’s silly, but I like to read about how my day is supposed to go, even if it’s arbitrary. Want to read yours? You’re an Aquarius, aren’t you?”

Langa, with his head still in the stars, leans over without thinking. His mother presses her phone screen closer to him. Sure enough, it’s open on Aquarius’s horoscope, Langa’s sign. Since he’s dating Reki now and that’s the only thing on his mind, why not check the Daily Dating section?  _ “As an Aquarius, you’ve gotten a bit too idealistic in your love life today. Recently, you’ve become a bit flighty and one-track-minded. This kind of unapologetic desire gets you what you want, but remember that not only one person runs a relationship.” _

Langa hands the phone back to his mother. To him, it’s just a bunch of gibberish. “I don’t get it.”

She scans through the paragraph before chuckling quietly to herself. “Why are you looking at the dating section? Is there a girl you’re interested in and you haven’t told me about?”

“A girl?” Reki’s not a girl.

She doesn’t seem interested in the answer, so she plows on. “Well, from what I can tell, it’s saying that you can’t force someone into something they don’t like. What you want is what you want. It’s selfish to drag others into your own wants, because they’re still a person with their own opinions.”

Selfish?

A bit delayed, but something punches his gut. Karma, he assumes, because a tremendous waterfall of guilt hits his head like an anvil. Langa suddenly realizes that what he’s been doing this whole time was very, very bad. Holy shit, how could he get away with this for as long as he did? It’s only been a day, technically, but that’s a day too long.

Nanako frowns. Pressing a hand against his forehead, she asks, “Langa? You’ve gone pale. Are you alright?”

“I’m the worst person ever.”

“What? Sweetie, no you’re not—”

He doesn’t stick around to hear the rest of it. In a hurry, he stands up from the couch and rushes out the door.

  
  
  


☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

  
  
  


The stars watch them from above as Langa raps his fist against Reki’s door.

“Reki,” Langa announces as his so-called boyfriend opens his front door, “we need to break up.”

Reki blinks before frowning. Everything about him is neatly disheveled, from his messy hair to his casual clothes. “Huh?”

“We need to break up.”

“No, I heard you the first time. Can you tell me why?”

“Yeah, I can. You’re dating me against your will and I forced you into this and I didn’t even consider your feelings, I just really wanted you to be my boyfriend and now I’m realizing that you don’t even want to be in this because this is my problem and my problem only.”

Reki scratches the back of his head. He’s in a black t-shirt a couple sizes too big, and it engulfs his body like a curtain. It looks cute on him. It must be his pajama shirt— Langa,  _ focus! _

“Dude, what?”

It’s short, and somehow it lacks all of Langa’s panic. Reki is entirely calm as he leans against his door frame. Since he’s not wearing a headband, his crimson bangs fall in front of his eyes and it’s adorable, and Langa wants to move them away so he can properly see Reki’s sparkly, starry eyes—  _ Langa! _

“My horoscope,” Langa pressures. He waves his hands wildly. “My horoscope said that I was being an inconsiderate asshole when it comes to my relationship and I thought about you and how this relationship is built on absolutely nothing—”

Reki stops him by holding up a hand. “Langa, you know none of that horoscope stuff is actually rooted in the truth, right? It’s just some random people writing some random stuff about your astrology sign every day.”

“No way, this is real,” argues Langa. “The stars said so, and you know how the stars are. They know  _ everything. _ ”

Reki furrows his brows. Under the dimmed summer night, Langa can just barely make out an unamused pout. Subconsciously, Langa wants to kiss it like they kissed hours earlier, at the telephone pole they usually meet at, and the telephone pole they usually split at. He wants to kiss Reki like he’s a living work of art, because he is one, but now is not the time for Langa to be happy. Right now, he’s supposed to be going through the most groundbreaking crisis ever. He’s supposed to be the most remorseful idiot the universe has ever seen.

Completely unaware of what’s going on in Langa’s head, Reki asks, “like how you put all your faith in that shooting star yesterday?”

Langa gapes. “How did you—”

“You screamed it while my sister and I were walking back from her dance class,” says Reki like this didn’t just change literally everything. “I wasn’t that far from your house, so I caught your screaming. Oh and also, you were pretty loud. I could tell it was you even though I couldn’t see anybody.” He looks away, flustered red crawling onto his skin. “So, uh, that’s how I know.”

_ Are you kidding me?! _

Langa wants to drop dead. Becoming fertilizer for the ground below him is probably more productive than this progression of events. “You heard me.”

Reki nods.

“You heard me yelling in the dead of night for you to like me back.”

“Yup.” The rosy cheeks burn harder.

Langa tilts his head back and covers his eyes with his forearm, groaning loudly. “Reki,  _ why didn’t you just kill me? _ ”

“Aww, don’t be like that. It was cute!”

“Don’t lie to me...”

With a laugh, Reki gently reaches out for Langa’s hand and secures it in his own. It’s warm, just like this fateful night, and when Langa looks back he spots a firefly in Reki’s hair. Bright, like a fallen star.  _ He’s so pretty,  _ Langa thinks intrusively. “Well, I kind of wished for the same thing. Before you yelled that, I mean. That night, there was a meteor shower, so I saw a shooting star in the sky by accident and the first thing I thought of was, well, dating you...”

Reki catches Langa’s glance for only a second before looking down again. Softly, he shifts his hand so their fingers are interlocked like a promise. “Though, I didn’t say it out loud like you did. My sister was there, so that would’ve been super embarrassing.”

This crush really is mutual?

Langa isn’t sure if this means that the shooting star’s magic worked or not, but right now he couldn’t bother to care about the little details. Against all the odds, does his best friend really feel the same way for Langa as he does for him, even without the star?

“So,” Langa says, afraid to ruin the comfortable moment they have right now, “you like me back. You, not the star forcing you to.”

“Obviously,” Reki says with a scoff. He rolls his eyes, but the blush on his skin is stronger than his annoyance. “At the end of the day, a shooting star’s just a star. There’s no way it’d be able to hear what we’ve got to say.” Tacked on, quieter, “and when I heard what you shouted, I thought that I’d finally give us a chance.”

Langa leans close, and unlike the other instances, Reki doesn’t lean back. He doesn’t lift up his hands, he doesn’t brush it off like it’s nothing. “I really like you, Reki.”

“I know that,” Reki responds with a smile, trembling and bashful, but his other hand reaching behind Langa’s neck says otherwise. Langa is sure he’s the only one who’s seen every side of Reki — the bold, the frustrated, the collected, the shy — and he wants to be the only one with this luxury.

“I seriously like you,” Langa says, and he’s kind of obsessed with the way Reki’s eyes are on him. Reki’s pretty eyes, brilliant and dazzling, look like they belong on the eventide sky. “And you really like me back?”

“How many times do I need to tell you—” Reki starts but doesn’t finish, because Langa’s willpower runs out and he kisses Reki square on the lips. There’s no  _ “whoa, uh, what’s up?”  _ this time around. Quite the contrary — Langa feels a tug on his shirt and soon realizes that Reki’s pulling him closer, as if to seal this with everything he’s got.

It’s softer and realer than the last kiss. The one at the telephone pole left Langa stupefied, craving more, but this one leaves him complete. It feels right. Everything’s falling into place, it seems.

Langa’s eyes are screwed shut, and when he reopens them, Reki finally pulls away.  _ Pretty,  _ Langa thinks, because of course he does. When Reki’s gaze rakes back up to Langa’s, Langa knows at last that he doesn’t need any kind of star to solidify what he wants.

“Wanna go on a date with me?” asks Langa like an idiot.

Reki grins and Langa’s heart does a somersault. It’s sweet like sugar, cute as a button, and someday it’s going to be the source of one of Langa’s heart attacks. “The timeline was kinda screwed up there, but sure, let’s go on a date.”

_ Hell yeah! _

“This is like a dream,” Langa breathes, and he’s well-aware of how stupid he sounds, but Reki just does that to him — his charm just makes Langa extra stupid. “Am I dreaming?” Reki pinches him on the arm. Nope, he’s not dreaming, and Langa lets out a sigh of relief.

“What’s with that,” laughs Reki heartily, eyes turning to crescents.

“This all feels so unreal. Are you sure the stars don’t have anything to do with this?”

“Idiot.” Reki goes on his tiptoes a bit to peck Langa’s forehead. And when he comes back down, his smile is liquid, syrupy and smug. “You think what we have is written in the stars or something?”

Maybe, maybe not, but Langa would love Reki all the same.

**Author's Note:**

> after i watched episode 8, my agenda quickly switched from pining reki to pining langa. because holy fuck what was that
> 
> (i have no idea how to write horoscopes lol)
> 
> i can only write in short sprints now, so i apologize that this reads kind of lackluster. i hope it's readable regardless, and that you enjoyed this silly story.
> 
> thank you for reading! please leave a comment if you liked it!
> 
> VISIT ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA:  
> twitter: @/minfreshhh  
> tumblr: @/minfresh


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